Light on the Hill

Guest (Male): Coming up today on Light on the Hill, an anchor to grab hold on in scary times.

James Kaddis: All of us have been in a point where we've seen something that's caused us to walk in fear, and what do we do? We run. But the only thing I want you to see, the only thing I want to get you to be able to understand is even if you find yourself in a place where in the midst of the depth of fear and warfare, as you run, will you stop and recognize that there's one person who isn't running? There's one person who is standing still and will always accomplish what he set forth to accomplish because his word will never be broken.

The moment you can understand that will become the very moment that you recognize the consistency of the God that you worship, and the word that he carries now becomes your anchoring point.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.

Guest (Male): Just imagine the scene. Jesus is betrayed by one of his disciples, and an armed crowd sent by the religious leaders arrest Jesus. What did those around him do? As we'll hear in a few moments, they deserted him and fled. There are some noteworthy lessons we can draw from this that help us the next time fear is overwhelming us. Not even our fear can deter Jesus from his mission. Here to point that out is our teacher and pastor James Kaddis in Mark chapter 14.

James Kaddis: Look at this verse 43. It says, and immediately while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the 12, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Think about this. Jesus is there in the garden, and he's saying, okay, let's move on. I'm about to be betrayed. The betrayer is coming, and while he finishes sharing the sentence, this massive army of temple guards are accompanying Judas. Can you imagine the emotion that must be felt at that moment? Can you imagine the fear that is very likely in their hearts, the fact that they are just so just they have to be overwhelmed by the moment?

They have to be filled with fear in the moment because the consequence that's coming is going to be significant. These are men that are armed. These are men that have the intention to kill Jesus, and if you are a disciple of Jesus, they very likely are going to kill you. That's what's going on in their minds. They have to have fear in them, and we know that that that's going to be confirmed in just a second. Look at what goes on. It says in verse 44, and he that betrayed him had given them a token saying, whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he.

Take him and lead him away safely. Now I I do want to stop by just simply mentioning one very important point that I do think is critical, and that is the fact that Jesus was not identifiable to these guards easily. Okay? Cuz I hear people talk about the fact that, oh, when Jesus walked around, he had a little aura around him, and he looked better than the average person. He was this certain height, and he was this No, actually, the Bible tells us that Jesus was not discernable in the sense that you couldn't just pick about from a crowd.

Okay? As a matter of fact, I think this is really important to understand the temple guards would not have known who Jesus was. The only way they know who Jesus was was by Judas walking up to him and kissing him because they weren't able to tell the difference. Now this could be a reflection of a couple of things. Okay? The first thing that it could be a reflection of is the obvious, and the obvious is Jesus was not some uh person who just stood out in the sense that he uh didn't look any different than most, certainly acted different than everybody.

There was something about him that everybody knew was completely different. But here's the second part about this that's also unique. It's very likely that the men who were going to arrest Jesus And this is I really believe this is happening, right? That the men who are likely going to arrest Jesus were men that the scribes and the Pharisees and the high priests made sure of never had contact with him prior. Now why would that be the case? I think that the reason why that the men who go to take Christ in custody would have never had contact with him prior was because they wanted to ensure that the men who would go to take out that task would not be people who because they watched Jesus in his goodness, when they watched Jesus do what he was doing as the creator of the universe, would not find a soft spot in their heart to not act on what they knew they needed to act on.

I actually believe that the reason why these men did not know who Jesus was besides the fact that he was not easily discernable in the crowd just from the outward appearance perspective was because these men went out of their way to make sure that the guards who went to go take Jesus had never had an encounter with him. I think there's something to be said about that statement because there's a thing that we can learn from that lesson, and that is this. And I don't want to take a lot of time pontificating on it, but I do think it's really important.

I have found in an overwhelming majority of the time the people who put themselves in a position to oppose the true and living God are often times people who have never had a real encounter with the true and living God. Now don't get me wrong. There are times where people do have a real encounter with the true and living God, and they reject it because the hardness of their heart drives them to the place of complete and total rejection. But there are moments There are moments where if you find somebody who is hostile to virtually all of it, the key the key is let them have an encounter with Jesus.

The key is show them who Christ is through what you're doing, through what you're saying, through the life that you're living. I have a friend right now who is getting beat up a lot right now. He is He is taking some fiery darts right now from the enemy because he is going out of his way to expose people who are in the ministry, who are doing very very evil things right now. And he has made a series of videos over the last several months where he has exposed some pretty evil things that have been happening in different charismatic movements.

And don't get me wrong. We as Calvary Chapel are a charismatic movement, and there are guys within Calvary Chapel that have done some pretty evil things and pretty wrong things that actually got covered up for in some cases. Okay? So the idea here that this guy is going and doing what he's what he's what he's doing and he's a very special friend of mine. He's somebody that I think I I'm very blessed by him. I actually had a hand in discipling him many many years ago, and he's very effective at what he does. He is very good at what he does, and he doesn't have one of these discernment ministries where he's going around and he's, you know, picking out all the sins and the flaws and lots of people.

He's not doing that. He he was confronted by a lot of people who were victims of these guards in ministry who were doing all kinds of things from stealing to lying to cheating to sexual abuse. So he decided that he was going to make videos to expose this, to force the condition of accountability that was being ignored. And the way he's been effective at it, right? There's churches that are like turning around and they're repenting and saying, we're sorry we didn't, you know, like we shouldn't have done this. We were wrong. That's good to see.

I'm very happy to be able to see that. I'm very I'm very very blessed to be able to see that type of thing happening. But here's the thing that's really interesting. I don't even have to talk to my friend to understand the mentality that feeds what he does. Okay? Because here's the thing. If you want to win people over, the way you win them over is you expose them to Christ. There's literally it's the only You don't have to be a salesman. All you have to do is go to the people and show them who Jesus is.

He's the one. As a matter of fact, my greatest errors in ministry, my biggest flaws in ministry are when people see more of me than they do Christ. Because when they see more of me than they do Christ, then they're not going to be transformed. When they see Christ more than they'll ever see me, there's transformation that takes place. It's really simple. I love the mentality of those that understand that principle because when Christ is exposed to even the hardest hearts, they soften. I think the enemy inspired the betrayal of Jesus to be done by people who had never seen Jesus or known Jesus or recognized Jesus so that the likelihood of their failure to accomplish what they wanted them to accomplish would be uh minimized.

In other words, I I do not believe that these were people who just randomly were selected to go take them into custody. I think they were people who were given a picture of who he was without ever knowing him or understanding the truth. Now that's a really important thing because when fear settles in I'm going to just tell you this right now. You should take a note of this. When fear settles in in any context, I can promise you Christ is out of the equation. Okay? At least when fear settles in and you allow the fear to cause you to capitulate, Christ is out of the equation.

I can tell you that right now. Look what look what happens here. This is very interesting. So he goes to kiss him verse 45, and as soon as he was come, he goes straight away to him and saith, master master, and kissed him. We all know what's going on. Jesus knows what's going on. And they laid their hands on him and took him. So we knew what was going to come next. But watch this. This is so interesting. Look at this. Look what happens here. Verse 47. And one of them that stood by drew a sword and smote a servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.

So very uh interesting dynamic here. Okay? You see This is Obviously, we know who we're talking about here. We're talking about Peter who did this. Okay? I think By the way, I should probably just say this cuz I think it's kind of important. I don't think that Peter was named here probably because Peter was the one who likely wrote this gospel. Okay? Just to give you an idea, the reason why we call this the gospel according to Mark is because obviously Mark wrote it. But there's argument as into what inspired that writing, if it was him and Peter that did this together.

But there's a lot of speculation here. There's actually a couple of verses here that are going to we're going to speculate on uh matter of fact near the end of the section that we're reading here. But uh you know, my guess is when he went and he lopped this ear off just so that everybody knows what happens. Okay? My guess is he was going for the head. Okay? I'm guessing he was trying to cut the head of the soldier off. Okay? I don't think that he was doing a precision sword move where he goes, she just cuts the guy ear.

Like what's the point of cutting the guy's ear off, right? That doesn't even make sense. I think he was going for his head. It It would seem as though something like that was probably happening, and he didn't do it well, didn't do it right, whatever. And of course, we know what happens. We know that that uh you know, Christ obviously wasn't going to have that. He healed him. We know the situation. Okay? But they put their hands on him. Okay? They took him. And one of them that stood by drew a sword and smote the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear.

And Jesus answered and said unto them, are you come out against the thief with swords and with staves to take me? I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you took me not. But the scriptures must be fulfilled. By the way, he's talking about Isaiah. I think that's Isaiah 53 is is what he's talking about here. But keep this in mind. I don't think Jesus is talking to the guards here. I think he's talking to the priests, to the Pharisees, to the scribes. I'm almost certain that's what's happening here. Okay? He's making it very clear.

But there's one thing that I want everybody to understand because it's really really important. Okay? Jesus is not being moved at all by what's happening. Not only is he not being moved by what's happening, he is still willing to in the midst of him being taken into custody speak the truth and do it in a way that is effective and articulate. Did you notice that? He's not losing his cool. He's not in a situation where he doesn't know what to say and is freaked out. He's not lopping a sword out and cutting ears off and There's none of that going on.

He understands exactly what's going on. The part that is in of great interest to me doesn't have anything to do with the fact that he is saying, hey, you saw me preaching in the temple. Why are you coming to me as a thief? There was a point there that he was bringing out. And the point that he was bringing out was he was creating within the minds of the people that were observing at the time a point of contact with a prophecy that existed in the word concerning what was going to happen to him. That's exactly what he was doing.

He was communicating very very clearly what the Bible had predicted would take place. He wasn't impulsive like Peter was. He wasn't panicking. He wasn't going crazy. None of that stuff, as we're going to find out, he simply confronted it. What he was By the way, what he was probably talking about was Isaiah 53. Let's look at this. Isaiah 53:7. By the way, we'll go there real quick and read it. I also believe by the way that what's also being fulfilled in Bible prophecy that he's also talking about is Daniel 9:26 where we talk about the Messiah being cut off, right?

Um which is a whole other section that we could spend some time looking at. But Isaiah 53 is probably the text here that he's referring directly to. And you could also argue Daniel 9:26 as well. But let me read this in Isaiah 53. And it says this verse 7. It says he was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation?

For he was cut off the land of the living. And for the transgression of my people was he stricken. God knew that this was going to happen. God knew. God was aware of it. He was making them aware of the fact that these things were happening, that they would happen. He made it very clear. And I think that what he was doing was he was pointing out what the Bible said concerning this. By the way, just so that you know, this will not be the first time Jesus does this. This wasn't the first time he does this when he's being taken away, and it certainly will not be the last time while he's being crucified.

As a matter of fact, there are multiple times while Christ is being crucified where there are things that he says or does that brings insight into a biblical passage being fulfilled. One of the the most prominent examples of this is while he's hanging on the cross, he says For those of you that don't know, that is the translation for or the translation for that is my God my God, why have you forsaken me? But if you go to the book of Psalms, Psalm 22 starts off exactly that way. Anybody who would have watched Jesus say would have immediately known what was going on.

It was a fulfillment of Psalm 22 because the Psalm starts off by simply saying They knew it. I just butchered that last word. I just butchered that last word. But my point is they knew what was going on. Christ was making it very very clear here. And I 'm going to bring this home for just a second. I 'm going to I 'm going to drive this to a point that I think is really important. It's going to all make sense to you in just one moment. So what he is doing is in the midst of the fearful moment he is causing people to become aware of what the word declares concerning what he's doing.

You guys know who I am. They are taking me away as a thief, but you know what? We're going to let it happen because the Bible said it should happen. The word predicted it. Here's where it gets really interesting. Verse 50. And they all forsook him and fled. They all forsook him and fled. Let me tell you how bad it looked. Let me tell you how desperate it was. Let's look at this encounter of this mysterious fellow. I think I know who it is by the way, but you know, there's a lot of assumption, a lot of debate that's gone back and forth.

Verse 51. And there followed him a certain young man having a linen cloth cast about his naked body. And the young men laid hold on him, and he left the linen cloth and fled from them naked. So he kind of sticks around. He's watching what's going on. He sees Christ being taken into custody. He's basically got a a linen cloth wrapped around him to cover his nakedness pretty much. And as they go to lay hands on him, he slips out of the linen cloth, and he's so scared that he's willing to run naked from the garden all the way to where he needed to go to get safe.

That's the picture. By the way, a lot of people believe that that right there was was John Mark. A lot of people believe that that was the guy who actually wrote this gospel account. That's what a lot of people believe. I kind of am the persuasion that it was probably him as well. Okay? But there you have There's a There's a a big You have to take some big leaps to say that definitively. I'm just guessing that that's who it was. Some people say it's that it wasn't him, but I actually think that there's another gospel account that gives us big evidence of the fact that this is him.

We just don't have the time to go over that because I think that we'll lose the point of what I'm trying to explain here. And the point I think is critical and that's this. Everybody feared. Everybody. They all ran. They all left. None of them stayed with Jesus. They all took off. Yet in the fear that was being capitulated to, in the midst of it all, Christ still stood to fulfill what he knew needed to be fulfilled according to the word of God. There's a massive lesson for us to learn in all of this. And that is the fact that no matter what our state of mind is, no matter how much fear we feel in our heart, no matter how bad things appear to be, no matter how difficult the circumstance or no matter how painful the situation, God says, I don't need you, your emotion, or your action to determine what I have pre set in my heart to do.

I'm going to do what I do. And there's something spectacular about that because the very moment that you recognize in times of fear that your emotions don't become the actions that set the tone, that your feelings, that your hardship, that whatever it is that you're going through at that moment is not what's predicated upon the fulfillment of God's purposes, then you learn. Then you learn to simply trust and know that in your trust of God, he can help you through whatever difficulty you're experiencing. All of us have been there, haven't we? All of us have been in a point where we've seen something that has caused us to walk in fear, and what do we do?

We run. But the only thing I want you to see, the only thing I want to get you to be able to understand is even if you find yourself in a place where in the midst of the depth of fear and warfare, as you run, will you stop and recognize that there's one person who isn't running? There's one person who is standing still and will always accomplish what he set forth to accomplish because his word will never be broken. The moment you can understand that will become the very moment that you recognize the consistency of the God that you worship.

And the word that he carries now becomes your anchoring point. You have the ability now in the midst of your fear to stop and to say, okay, I've run long enough. I've been freaking out long enough. I'm acting in a place that I shouldn't be acting. God hasn't gone anywhere. He's not changed his direction. He hasn't said, oh, you've run off, so now there's no point. I'm not doing anything. Nope. He stayed right where he always was from the beginning to continue to do what he said he's going to do. And the best thing you can ever do in the midst of all of this is to recognize it for what it is.

You don't even need to know where you're at at the moment that you make that reconciliation. You don't need You don't need to be there for that. You don't need to know where you're at at that point. Reconciliation is not fundamentally predicated upon the idea that you have to have your bearing in order to be able to understand where you need to be going. It's predicated upon the idea that the God of heaven hears your voice. And so long as you stop where you are, call upon his name, he will bring you where you need to be.

Not only will he bring you where you need to be, he'll meet you where you're at and take you where you need to go. That's the lesson of this particular story. See, they ran. They freaked out. One guy ran out naked. God said, I'm going to let you do what you're going to do because the scripture has to be fulfilled. The plan was in place before the foundation of the earth, and we're going to go through with the plan. That's what happens to us as believers. When we recognize who the God is that we serve and we allow him to become the anchoring point for every moment that we're in at any point in time.

That's how God runs. That's what he does. And I for one would be someone who would encourage you to think at that level, to understand that whatever stage you're in in life right now, God says, you can rested me. You can trust in me. God already went through the suffering. He already experienced what he experienced on the cross. He defeated death. He defeated the grave. He's resurrected. No matter what fear you may have in whatever situation, when you allow yourself to interface with the true and living God, he has a way of getting you through it because he's already done the work.

Makes sense? So we've got to seek him, and we've got to put him first. Amen?

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us today for Light on the Hill. What you just heard is one part of a study in Mark's gospel from pastor James Kaddis. You can hear it again at lightonthehillradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Not long ago, pastor James released his new book on the first half of Revelation. It's entitled The Last Book. He points out that Revelation isn't a book of fear, but rather a book of hope. Pastor James will help you understand the world we live in and current events through a biblical lens, preparing your heart for what lies ahead.

Get a copy by going to lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon. We're so grateful for your support. Each donation that's sent in is an investment in what God is doing over the radio and internet. Lives are being impacted daily for the glory of God as a result. If you'd like to stand with us through providing either a one-time donation or ongoing monthly support, please visit lightonthehillradio.com. While you're there, you can also send us an email. It would be great to hear from you and have you share the station you listen to as well. Just visit lightonthehillradio.com and then click on contact.

Pastor James is back with us now. A critical election is coming up in less than two weeks. In a minute or less, give us a reason or two why it's important for Christians to vote.

James Kaddis: Well, I'll just give you one major reason, and that major reason is God has called you to. God has called you to engage in society and to take what is illegally available to you to stand for biblical principles. Your Christian worldview is exactly that. It is a worldview. It is not a compartmentalized worldview. It's not sort of a proportional worldview. It's a worldview. And if you understand that, then you'll know that politics emanates from the pulpit. And if our pulpits are being correctly occupied in directing people in the word of God, then you will engage as such.

And voting gives you an opportunity to clear your conscience in standing for the things that please God and doing something about those people that can't do things for themselves, namely babies. I mean, let's talk about just that alone. But there are so many other areas. The obligation is real and it's set forth and you do it because God expects it of us.

Guest (Male): I don't think I could have said it any better. Thanks, pastor James. Remember, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Light on the Hill with pastor James Kaddis is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.

Guest (Female): I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Cuz all I need is you.